CHAPTER XXXIX.
DEMOCRATIC NORWAY—HER SUN, HER SCENERY AND HER CORONATION.
Norway was so full of attractions at the time of our visit that I am at a loss to know in what order to treat of them. As those things which are permanent will interest a larger number than the transient ceremonies attending the crowning of a new king, I shall give the preference to the most distinguishing feature of Norway, that which has been interwoven with her name, viz., the midnight sun. Owing to its accessibility and to the fact that its climate is moderated by the influence of the Gulf stream, the coast of upper Norway furnishes the best opportunity which Europeans have to mount the Arctic merry-go-round and view the sun through the whole nightless day. It is a weird experience, this passing from day to day without intervening darkness, and one returns from it somewhat exhausted, for the light tempts him to encroach upon the hours of sleep.
The North Cape, the northernmost point of the continent of Europe, is usually the destination of the tourist, but it is not necessary to go so far to see all that there is worth seeing. There are several towns above the Arctic circle where for several weeks the sun never sinks to the horizon. At Bodo, which is but little more than a day's ride by boat from Trondhjem, the sun is visible at midnight from May 30 to July 11. At Hammerfest, which is the terminus of some of the steamboat lines and which claims to be the northernmost town in the world, the sun does not set between May 13 and July 28, while at Tromso, not quite so far north as Hammerfest, the inhabitants have but ten days less of the midnight sun.
We stopped at Svolvaer, one of the chief fishing stations of the Lofoden Islands, nearly two hundred miles north of the Arctic circle. We arrived about seven in the evening, and would have seen the sun the previous night but for a bank of clouds behind which it passed at about 11:30. Svolvaer nestles at the foot of some snow-crowned peaks which shut out the northern horizon, and it is necessary to go out into the open sea or to climb a mountain to get an uninterrupted view. With our usual good luck we found an English-speaking Norwegian who had studied in the United States, and with him to direct us, we spent a memorable night among the islands.
The channel to the north, known as Raftsund, is one of the most picturesque along the entire coast, and the Troldfjord which leads from it through a rockbound gorge to the outlet of a famous mountain lake, is not surpassed in rugged grandeur. Troldfjord deserves to be described by a poet, for prose can not do it justice. If any of my readers have ever passed through the Royal Gorge in southern Colorado, they may understand me when I say that Troldfjord is a Royal Gorge with its walls widened to a quarter of a mile and lengthened to a mile, and the space between them filled with a transparent sea, whose surface perfectly mirrors every rock and shrub. At the upper end of the fjord is a majestic cascade, the dashing, splashing, foaming outlet of the lake two hundred feet above. Our launch ceased its throbbing and sat swanlike on the fathomless water, while we feasted our eyes upon a picture so beautiful that darkness hesitates to draw a curtain over its charms.
